More than 120,000 homes bought with an Equity Loan Scheme

Over the period since the launch of the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme (1 April 2013 to 31 March 2017), 120,864 properties were bought with an equity loan.

The total value of these equity loans was £5.86 billion, with the value of the properties sold under the scheme totalling £28.53 billion. Most of the home purchases in the Help to Buy: Equity Loan scheme were made by First Time Buyers, accounting for 97,578 (81 per cent) of total purchases.

The mean purchase price of a property bought under the scheme was £236,041, compared with a mean equity loan of £48,503. In London, the maximum equity loan was increased from 20% to 40% from February 2016, and since then to March 2017, there were 3,249 completions in London, of which 2,314 were made with an equity loan higher than 20%.

For the Help to Buy: NewBuy scheme, 5,694 house purchases were made since the launch of the scheme in March 2012. There were no new transactions in Q1 2017 due to the scheme closing to new mortgage offers on 8 March 2015.

Alok Sharma, Housing and Planning Minister said, “Today’s figures show that Help to Buy: Equity Loan continues to be hugely successful, supporting thousands of households across the country to take their first step onto the housing ladder.

“More than 120,000 completions have now taken place through the Help to Buy Equity Loan scheme, which offers buyers up to 20% of a newly-built home’s costs so they only need to provide a 5% deposit.”